Enrollment could fall at California Maritime Academy in Vallejo and other public university campuses in California now that fees have been raised an additional 5 percent.
California State University trustees voted Friday at a meeting in Long Beach to raise student fees for fall 2010 to make up for budget cuts imposed by the state legislature in Sacramento.
The annual cost of attending the Vallejo campus is more than $5,000 for in-state students who carry their own health insurance. Out-of-state students generally pay more than twice as much per year.
But it could have been worse for the hundreds of students at Cal Maritime and the hundreds of thousands at CSU’s 23 campuses statewide. Trustees were considering a proposal to raise annual costs by more than 10 percent, after a 32 percent hike last year.
“The board’s decision to limit the student fee increase to 5 percent is based on the Assembly budget proposal that provides additional state revenues,” CSU Chancellor Charles Reed said after Friday’s vote. “It will allow us to move forward with adding classes and sections for students this fall.”
CSU is counting on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s support for plans to add $366 million to the university system’s budget to replace funds cut from its budget in 2009 and pay for increased enrollment. But CSU could revise its spending in November if plans change in Sacramento and the funding is not forthcoming or is reduced.
The fee increase announced Friday amounts to $204 annually for undergraduates, $252 for graduate students and nearly $900 for education doctoral students, the CSU Web site said.
The school, the West’s first maritime academy, started training students to be U.S. Merchant Marine officers in 1931 as the California Nautical School in what is now Tiburon. It changed its name to California Maritime Academy in 1939, widended its focus and began conferring bachelor’s degrees in 1940, and opened its permanent campus at Morrow Cove in Vallejo in 1943.
The first women cadets were admitted in 1973. The school became part of the CSU system in 1995.